Bush pushes immigration bill

President Bush prodded Congress on Tuesday to approve immigration reform this year, assuring senators that he supports comprehensive legislation that would include a guest-worker program as well as improved enforcement.

But whether the president's support for the kind of immigration reform that stalled in the Senate two weeks ago will be enough to win congressional approval remained a major question as those who oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants showed no signs of relenting.

"It's important that we reform a system that is not working," said Bush, surrounded in the White House Cabinet Room by a bipartisan group of senators, including those who negotiated a Senate immigration compromise that later stalled.

"It's important that we uphold the values of the United States of America," Bush said. "It's important that we treat people with dignity. And I strongly believe that we have a chance to get an immigration bill that is comprehensive in nature to my desk before the end of this year."

Lawmakers from both parties left the meeting noticeably upbeat, a marked difference from the time just before their spring recess when many were crestfallen after the Senate legislation bogged down following disagreement between the Senate's leaders on how to proceed.

"I'm not in the habit of patting the president on the back, but I have to say that this was a really good, good meeting," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

"The rest of it, I think, is up to Sen. [Bill] Frist and I," he said. "We have to work out a way to handle the procedural quagmire that the Senate is. We're going to try to do that."

Frist, the Senate majority leader from Tennessee, nodded in agreement.

For weeks, congressional supporters of a guest-worker proposal have asked Bush to take more of a leadership role and use his bully pulpit to build support. Tuesday's meeting and a speech Bush made Monday were seen as his response.

Absent from the White House on Tuesday, though, were senators who disagree with key provisions of the legislation, particularly giving most of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

House Republicans were missing too. In December, the House passed a bill without a path to legalization of immigrants in the U.S. That bill was focused on enforcement.

While Bush's political standing may be at the lowest point of his presidency, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said he believed the White House still could wield sufficient influence to urge House Republicans to reach a compromise.

"I think the president of the United States--as long as he lives in this house--has a pretty decent position of strength to talk about any issue," Martinez said, standing outside the White House's West Wing.